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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/25982800">It Forgets</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/regularbones/pseuds/regularbones'>regularbones</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>Local Hero (1983), Original Work, The Animals of Farthing Wood (TV)</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>Attempted Suicide, Character Death, Cheating, Comfort, Conflict, Court, Court Hearing, Drinking to Cope, Friendship, Gen, Hawaiian shirt conference on cliffside, Internal Conflict, Internal Monologue, M/M, Marriage, My first original work that I've ended up publishing, Not completely sure how to navigate any of this yet either, Small Towns, Traffic Warden, Violence, Wedding, change, mentor, the sea</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>Completed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2020-08-19</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2020-08-19</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-05 11:40:08</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>Teen And Up Audiences</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>1</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>1,989</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/25982800</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/regularbones/pseuds/regularbones</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>He took a deep breath and a beat to think, “A lot better. A lot better now.”</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Relationships:</b></td><td>Gordon/Felix, Mac/Felix, Mac/Gordon, Original Character(s)/Original Character(s)</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>It Forgets</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
      <p>This work is not intended to represent the characters in Local Hero and I used their names more as a homage to the film because it's one of my favourites. The skies in that film really influenced the skies I saw in that dream. Some names of places or characters are also taken from The Animals of Farthing Wood, as I've been slowly re-watching that for the first time since I was little and realising how graphic it was.</p><p>This is the first time I've published any of my work seriously. I had a dream in this seaside town and the emotional flesh of the story was there, I just wasn't sure how to write that out. But this is the first draft, and looking back, the feeling I had when I was dreaming it is there. </p><p>It was also a vent and form to think about how I value this life. These characters are quite bare and vague because we're only seeing this small ripple in their lives; Felix is a post-man and has lived his life set on a clear goal, Mac is really still at a crossroads of whether this is the end or the beginning of his life, and Gordon has learnt how to begin again but is still in a mind-set reminiscent of the toxic feedback that Mac is suffering in.</p><p>Hope someone enjoys reading this :)</p>
    </blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>It was very early and quiet on the morning Felix took Mac down to the docks after lying in hospital for the best part of two months. He spoke once when signed his name at reception – but Mac didn’t talk very much at all.</p><p>“You feeling good son?”</p><p>He took a deep breath and a beat to think, “A lot better. A lot better now.”</p><p>They continued down to the west exit of the promenade that looked out on a cold pink sunset bringing itself over the sand and the sea. Mac squinted out at the curling waves and felt his familiar sickness trickle in. There was a gazebo built on the sand a few yards right that hadn’t been there the last time he had walked the line.</p><p>“That’s what it is, Mac. You didn’t have to do anything to get where you are, but it took you here anyway.”</p><p>The pinkish glow fades out into another blinding line and Mac looks away because the reset of the sky and light around makes it feel like nothing ever happened at all.</p><p>“Now you’re feeling good son, you’re going to be feeling better.” Felix says softly, “Things change around you when you don’t realise it. You get better without even trying.” He didn’t honestly believe it but he couldn’t hear any other thing besides the terrible splashing and water on his skin again – now only wiping off heavy tears as he said “thank you, thank you” through the closed curtains of his hands.</p><p> </p><p>The guests began to leave after the bride threw up in her mouth and her brother took her outside for a breath of fresh air. Moritz and Holly took handfuls of scotch eggs and puree crackers and layered them in their own respective containers. They said they had brought a few and then we were almost the only ones in the purpled hall, filling our buckets of hams and cheeses. Joe popped the crisp packets before he packed them down and he said something about the hall popping and all the air being squeezed out and crunching us all into a stack. I realised how drunk I was when I watched him laugh and felt my vision crack back behind my eyes for a second, like I had lost control, or left the desk for a second. Then I rushed back in and almost fell forward – ears buzzed with how clear and loud the silence felt.</p><p>Holly put the lid on her box and cradled it to her car. When he got to the pickles, Joe said something else that made us all think it was rather philosophical, but none of us could remember. I remembered Jared and Marina laughing and holding onto each other like they were alone in their world of gin and sex. He took her into the toilets to fuck her whilst his new wife chucked up in the car-park. I didn’t think to stop them at all, and I couldn’t think of it now. All me and Joe did was hold Susanne back from the toilet and stop her getting too close to hear the barks and cackles of loose throats and knocking against the filthy ceramic. I’d never seen her drink before, but the way she looked at me was like she’d known it all her life; it was the same sadness of dad swaying in the kitchen. Joe put the whole stick of salami in his pocket.</p><p>I remember going to the party with Felix. We were both much younger then, but he was still old; darker eyes and peppered hair. Speaking to him has always been the softest sound and most calming place to be. He left after the service as he could never stand the strangeness and theatrics of the reception. He was never married.</p><p> </p><p>“You should see Gordon again, he’s wondering where you went.” The two of them stop at the end of the metal railing to look over at the shit-stained sea and hot grey sky over-head, like a sheet being pulled over the town and pressing down and crunching the people who came out of their doors to walk up and down the streets they’ve always walked down and buy their daily fish and eggs from the window winding up its metal curtains.</p><p>Mac hadn’t noticed what Felix meant by that at first, “So, he asked for me?”</p><p>“No. He’s just wondering. Didn’t say anything to me or to the lads at the office, but he’s looking around for you every now and then and he’d be as happy to see you as you him.” He laughs smoky and deeply before curling into a horrible cough. He headed for the post-office and promised to see Mac again later in the week; he always spoke like he meant it – and I believe he did.</p><p>A school-sized cluster of older lads were stationed at the end of the promenade. I remember one clearly, who had his arms folded and kept acting up to his friends by throwing a broken plastic bin over his head and blowing at them through it, orchestrating a cackle amongst a few of them who weren’t listening to the guide in front of them. I walked past them when I was going to my 1 to 5pm post at the Y-junction on Adder St.</p><p>Joe, who was on the park post at the time, watched them walk down the slope to the beach and he said they were from up north because they kept repeating the guide like birds, all saying “<em>Today, today, today</em>” like it sounded so different and “<em>Ocean! </em>Oh<em>, Ocean!”</em> He also told me that he saw a similarly rounded group but of far much older men, all in strangely patterned shirts, walk up through the greens to get to the cliffs for a conference – probably on shirts. Joe said this because they were all inspecting each other’s collars and materials as they walked up in a evenly spaced procession. Then a smaller man started pinching at another’s shirt, saying the material was too thin, and that the light pink base with black hedera leaf pattern was not within their shirt constitution. So he started cutting the back of his shirt up and really trying to get at him with this thick triangle knife. The man crossed off of the beaten path and through the dry grasses to get him off; the procession stalled only for a minute.</p><p>He saw Felix walk Mac to the pier and said Mac was waiting alone in the gazebo and was still there at the end of his morning shift.</p><p>“That kid’s waiting to see you… bet you’ve been waiting too.” Joe says.</p><p>“He listens to Felix well, he’s got an idea of me already melted in from when we first met. The more time we spend talking, the more disappointed he gets, and he’s not going to be alright if I do that to him; when he does that to himself.” We walked to Herkel’s on our lunch break for fish and eggs and talked for the first time since we were at Jared’s divorce in the summer. Neither me or Joe wanted to testify against him and say we’d seen him carry Marina like an old dog into the toilet stalls. It was the first time I'd seen or heard stone-faced Jared cry. We found out that day that Susanne’s mum had slipped into the disabled loo and found a naked, sweating and half-asleep groom pushing the bridesmaid down onto the toilet seat. I could feel him looking at me for the whole statement I’d prepared. I couldn’t look at any of them, I didn’t even look at Joe. His cries echoed the chamber and shivered like a child's.</p><p>I told Felix I wasn’t going to testify, and I think he felt dissapointed, that I wouldn't do that for Susanna – it just took me a few weeks to realise that I had been doing alright for quite a long time. Because Mac is an angry kid, always a kid to Felix; shortness of temper and a sadness like I’d known before. I didn't see Felix again until I found him at the side of Mac's hospital bed.</p><p>Felix would say that “This boy will end up dead if I don’t at least try.”</p><p> </p><p>The trees had grown thick in the beginning of the year, so as it neared autumn, the late afternoon bake would become a soft glow through the knitting of leaves over the houses and the road. I was on Joe’s post when I pulled Mac out the water, not knowing who he was at that point, only ever hearing ‘young-lad’ and ‘kid’ from Felix. He was angry and tried to hit me off of him which pushed my head under the water and gave me a splitting ache in the bridge of my nose for days after. He started kicking me and really shouting when I put him on the shore, so I started pushing him back, only a little bit harder, until the touch became gripping and standing on his arms to keep him from scratching.</p><p>I realised that I could get reported to the office if someone saw and I tried to turn passive ‘til he slowed down and just started crying. And then I recognised him at once.</p><p>“I’m not going to get a good life if I carry on like this. I’m not made for it.”</p><p>“You’re trying though, aren’t you? You’ll keep yourself going but you only realise it when you’re not like… <em>this.</em>”</p><p>“Sick of waiting though…”</p><p>And we talked like that until his shirt was dry, and some salt had crystallised on the fabric of his skin, and his hair was dry and knotted, and his face was no longer red and hot. We agreed that I wouldn’t go and tell Felix, because he still had hope that Mac would never lose himself like this. He was younger than me by three years, and I had known Felix for four, so something sat in me that he would do this again if he gave himself the decision again. But he wouldn’t do it like this again, Mac would kill himself so no one would save him, and he was far from being saved.</p><p>Only Mac’s sister and the doctor had known about his overdose for the first week he was in the hospital. And she told me... She told me to come and see him because “He thinks about you sometimes” and what is that supposed to mean? All he knows about me is through our conversation on the beach and the exaggerations he's heard from various locals, and his family will think I’m the only medicine for him until they begin to see how I’ve been making him sick.</p><p>Some of the boys from the northern tour group came up to me on the island and started messing around with some of the traffic signs so the bigger cars would stutter and rev past. The frustration of the drivers entertained them for a while, and one even helped me pack away the chair and signs so I let him turn the lamp off from the box.</p><p>Mac was at the bottom of hill walking up. I panicked because I didn’t know what I could say to him; there was nothing in the world I could say that would feel right.</p><p>“I visited you in hospital… y’know.”</p><p>When we walked down the road together to my house, his voice lingered very softly. I don’t know how to say it – in a way that was distinctly Felix, but in the sense that his speaking calmed you. He calmed me. It wasn’t a tired promise one afternoon at the beach, this was going to be slow and terrible - I hoped. Our arms brushed intermittently as we went, and I thought I was drunk.</p>
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